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Straight from trade school I had a couple offers, one from a company that was on channel 9 news for scamming people lol and the other was a commercial sheet metal shop (russian mafia) lol good guys though. Went with the russians, there was a language barrier but we managed to communicate thru hand gestures and grunts. Worked with em for 6 months, had same problem you had with 2 of the guys. Working my butt off- got fired essentially, hired back on 2 months later for a year. I learned alot and eventually got along with all the guys. When dudes start talking crap about you to the boss its cause they're afraid to be outshined and maybe loose their job or stuck.
Even after school you still settle for the undesirable and work your way up. But great experiences and knowledge to back pocket. Keep looking and keep trying, and ask if you can help with what ever. I started by blobbing mastic on duct seams.

That's the thing, I got along with all the techs, save one. It was the head of my dept. that seemed to resent my presence. The first few days I was taping duct seams and using duct seal on joints we did not tape. They even had me drilling holes through concrete for about 5 hours one day. Later, one of the senior techs told me that was a test. If a guy drills holes most of the day, and comes back the next day, we know he is willing to work. I told my boss this, and he said " I must not have seen that". He came out to a job site for about 10 mins. per day, and from the sound of it, that is how I was evaluated.

1- The residential worker always have the attitude the the person they teach is out to get their job. I never understood this mentality until I went into Industrial work, it really is an amazing fact of the trade.

2- By the 4th week of work you should have had a nitch that you could do that did not have to be observed, coulda been your fault for not doing it as well as the lead man, but regardless in 4 weeks you shoulda learned a few things to do unsupervised.

3-There is alway's 3 sides to a story, your side, the boss' side and somwhere in the middle is the truth. I don't give a damn what, where and who you do this is life.

4- Whatever you do, do not stand around infront of the boss. Always make yourself busy

Yes, I learned to recover the freon and help tear out the old line set if it was being replaced. I was doing some brazing ( I still need some practice at this) and I learned to fill the system with nitrogen and vacuum pump for leak test. As well as tearing out the old duct work and cutting the pvc for venting and drain lines.

I quickly learned that standing around when the boss was there, was a big no no, so when he showed up at the job site, and I didn't have anything to do, I would go out to the truck to "get something". I thought this was a good idea, until he told me I was "wandering off". I felt, I could not win with this guy.

I agree after a Month you should be getting in thier on install's. I mean like New AC install guy inside guy outside doing stuff always something to be done. You can't just be watching the Guy lol. If he is brazing then you should be setting up the pump He says jump you say how HI.

When I was doing co-op for gas meters the first guy i was with was in his mid 40 and his second career and hated it was miserable about it and sucked would do like 4 meters a day. I asked to be switched and got a gun hoe young guy and he was all about it we did like 12-20 meters a day guy had a system. It was fun and i liked it. You gotta find the system man and go with the flow.

School never hurt Noone man and always take courses to better yourself but nothing will beat hands on Training man so find another job as a helper and keep at her always be thinking of what you can be doing after 2 weeks of watching the way this company does installs.

If you wanna get a job standing around you need to be in road construction where you drive past and you see 5 guy's watching the one guy digging the hole.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I was mainly outside guy, and one of the guys was letting me braze. Once I learned the parts, I would always go to the truck when asked to get a scale, saws all, pump, tank , drive, s-drive, pvc, tape, insulation..etc..

I even told the guys at clean up time, "let me sweep, it is something I know how to do" I liked what I was doing, even though the heavy lifting was not my favorite thing.

This is a major issue on the non union side of the trade and one of the major reasons I joined a union.

I worked non union residential and commercial/industrial for 15yrs before realizing this was taking place. Run a call and get stumped, call the office for a senior technician's help, senior tech shows up and solves the problem but never takes the time to explain how he figured it out, that was the standard operating procedure. Come to figure out that they were threatened, if they taught me how to solve these problems then I could become as valuable as they were. It's a vicious cycle in this trade.

Now that the guys above me aren't threatened by me as their jobs are 100% secure, they share a wealth of knowledge with me. I have all my apprenticeship teachers, engineers, senior techs, other companies techs, factory guys, and a union membership of over 1000 men just one phone call away if I need help.

I cannot even begin to tell you how invaluable that is in this trade, it really makes my job a joy to do. I never have that hopeless stranded feeling anymore.

The whole union, non-union thing is a bit perplexing to me. I would gladly join a union shop, as I was in a union for 27 years in my last job. I was even shop steward for a few years, until the forced retirement.

1- The residential worker always have the attitude the the person they teach is out to get their job. I never understood this mentality until I went into Industrial work, it really is an amazing fact of the trade.

When I hire a new guy out of school I hire him knowing for the first few months he isn't going to be fast enough and I am not going to be able to let him out on his own in the first 6 months.

As such, the new guys start out with the PM guys. I pick my PM guys by who has the best diagnostic skills. My philosophy is contract work gets the best of my employees. If I have the best guys doing the PM's they find the problems before they are problems (usually). My PM guys only do PM's and repairs on my contract work. This means they are best suited for training the new guys.

A new guy always gets the same speech.

You are coming straight out of trade school. If I put you in front of 5 different pieces of equipment you will not be able to tell me how 4 of them work or what they should do.

I can't make money from your work right now and have to train you. So you will be my PM muscle for a few month. Your job will be to follow the instructions of the PM guys. You will do all the heavy lifting for them, you will do all the dirty work; haul the tools, clean up the equipment, clean the work trucks, run in and out with parts, or any other grunt work they ask to be done. For this I will pay to have one of my best Techs teach you about the HVAC industry, equipment, sequences of operation, how parts should work, how to troubleshoot, how to fix them, how talk to the customers, and how we want our work done.

Should you do the dirty work without complaint, learn, show progress, and gain the confidence of my PM department I will give you a raise and promote you to installation where you will learn again more about the equipment and you should be armed with your knowledge of how other bad installs made equipment difficult to do PM's or how equipment didn't work well because of a bad install.

I have two major rules that I cut in stone. If you show up late 3 times or leave early without getting approval I show you the door. If you call in more then two week in a year, I show you the door.

I understand you will make mistakes, I understand you will break things, I understand you will cost me money before you make me money. I want you to work knowing that I know this and have prepared for it. I will forgive you and not hold you responsible. It is important that you get into it and work on the parts. You need to learn how to take a piece of equipment you don't understand, get your hands on it, and start figuring it out. Confidence that you can figure out how it works is the most important skill that I cannot teach you and you can't learn it being scared.

Last I know you will make those mistakes, don't try to hide them. If you admit what you did and tell me how you did it we can fix the problem faster and you learn. There is nothing that irks me more then having to diagnose a problem someone else created and they wont tell me what happened. It takes twice as long to fix when I don't know the beginning and middle.

Then they either put in the effort and know they are ding the grunt work cause they are costing the company money or they complain, don't try to learn, wont do the work, and get canned.

Well, I'm in the same boat. Except, I've yet to work for an HVAC company. I'm in Florida, which is a right to work state. So, no unions here. I'm currently in HVAC school learning a new trade. I know it's going to be hard work to get started and prove myself. I think it may be a little more difficult proving myself because I'm 50 years old. (young). I've worked hard my whole life, and there's no doubt I can easily keep up with someone half my age. I would love the opportunity to work for someone with the attitude like XcelTech. I'm in a dead end job now. I think I'll continue school and stay with this company and seek employment in the HVAC field come this spring.

Well, I'm in the same boat. Except, I've yet to work for an HVAC company. I'm in Florida, which is a right to work state. So, no unions here. I'm currently in HVAC school learning a new trade. I know it's going to be hard work to get started and prove myself. I think it may be a little more difficult proving myself because I'm 50 years old. (young). I've worked hard my whole life, and there's no doubt I can easily keep up with someone half my age. I would love the opportunity to work for someone with the attitude like XcelTech. I'm in a dead end job now. I think I'll continue school and stay with this company and seek employment in the HVAC field come this spring.

XcelTech , thank you for your input ! I have come to the conclusion that the guy I worked for (the HR person hired me) resented the fact that I was hired. He might have been under the impression that I had more experience than I do. I really don't care at this point, I did learn a lot on the job and while I felt I kept up in the physical dept. (There was one furnace and a narrow stairwell that still makes me curse) it was not my favorite part of the job. I did everything asked of me to the best of my ability.
Now that the busy season is over, I think he wanted to can me before my probation was up. Their loss I will just try to get a survival job until the next quarter of school starts. I do think I will enjoy this business, it will just take a little more time than I thought.